Firstly, I’d like to thank some of the people involved. Secondly, I want to speak about what’s different and, in particular, what’s “green” about this building refurbishment. Last, I want to talk about what stopped us making the building even greener.

Thanks

Firstly, I’d like to thank Trevor Lee, a former director of AEI whose original idea this project was. Secondly, I’d like to thank George Pooley, former chairman of AEI, who nurtured Trevor’s idea. Thirdly, I’d like to thank our neighbours, the local building company John Hindmarsh, and particularly two Hindmarsh staff, Gesa Ruge and Mady Hassan. They weren’t involved in this project but, like George, they nurtured the idea, helping us to investigate construction of a new green building. Next I’d like to thank Warren Overton. He was our green adviser on this project. I’d also like to thank Kevin Miller of Collard Clark Jackson, our architect, and his colleague Katy Mutton. Also, the services engineers Bassetts and Hughes Truman and the cost planner Wilde and Woollard. Finally, I’d like to thank the builders Vince Cosetto and Keith Holden from Cobul Constructions.

Now, to help you understand why we owe these people more thanks than if we’d simply built a conventional building I want to describe what is different and, in particular, green about this refurbishment.

What’s Green about it?

Suppose, hypothetically, I’d purchased the land behind us as a commercial development. My aim would be to attract potential tenants while minimising my capital costs. I might go to an architect and say,

“Build me a normal Canberra commercial office building, you know, the cardboard box with the hair dryer inside style. Don’t worry about how much it costs to run the hair dryer, I’m going to sell the building as soon as I’ve tenanted it. Make sure the hair dryer works in reverse so I can keep the air temperature to exactly 22°C Summer or Winter, I may want to get a government tenant”.

My aims as this hypothetical developer explain many of the features of the building stock we see around us. AEI’s aims were different:

We’re an owner occupier;
Our aim was to ensure our staff comfort whilst minimising our environmental footprint. But we’re not the CSIRO, we didn’t want to do any experiments and we’re answerable to our shareholders, I’m a shareholder.

So, with these aims and a budget set by reference to what we thought a conventional developer and long term tenant would spend on base building refurbishment and fit out, along with Warren I went to see Kevin. He said:

Think esky;
Lots of insulation;
Expose the concrete inside, use the thermal mass, use radiant heating;
Give staff more control, more daylight, use openable windows;
Recycle as much as possible.

From here you can see one of those features. If you look at Block D you can see the brick veneer under the paint. If you look at E you can’t, we’ve added 75mm of insulation to the outside. You will see many more features illustrating these ideas inside as you walk around.

One aspect of the environmental footprint we wanted to reduce was our energy consumption and attendant GHG emissions. Of course, we can’t know for sure in advance what we will achieve in this regard, but we’ve modelled our energy use using thermal simulation and energy rating software. We estimate our CO2 emissions to fall to be about one quarter of what they would have been if we’d just moved into this building as it was. Of course, a comparison with old stock is a bit unfair. There are a fair few developers advertising for tenants for new energy efficient buildings in Canberra. We estimate our CO2 emissions as a bit over half some of these new buildings.

What stopped us going further?

Finally, I’d just like to speak in a broader context about what stopped us going further. I’ll speak more generally than just this refurbishment, we investigated another potential refurbishment and construction of a new building before settling on this project.

If you look at Block D again you can “see” Australia’s Kyoto benchmark. It was built just before 1990. Had Australia signed up to Kyoto we would have been obliged to keep our GHG emissions to no more than 8% above 1990 levels.

AEI could have taken a free rider attitude to this refurb – left the cardboard & the hairdryer to themselves. Though, as the UK Stern report clearly sets out many carbon abatement strategies are life cycle cost saving.

To get where AEI has with this building – one quarter of 1990 GHG emission levels - we could’ve left the building fabric completely unaltered and looked for technological fixes. Keep the cardboard, throw out the hairdryer. We could’ve purchased one of those Russian portable nuclear power generators or used solar powered phase change technology for cooling. These sort of techno fix strategies weren’t at all attractive.

And if you asked me what stopped us going further, the answer has little to do with technology. The barriers to doing better were mostly man made – planning rules, the attitudes of potential neighbours, norms about good aesthetic taste & to a lesser extent price signals. These are barriers which reflect a sad absence of high level moral and political leadership.

Thanks Pauline.

>Trevor Pearcey House page

>Company information page